The Meeting
by Nicole Harpe
Summary: Al is home from Vietnam after six years being MIA. He arranges to speak with Beth Simon. This is that meeting. A bit melancholy.


**The Meeting

* * *

**

This Quantum Leap™ story utilizes characters that are copyright © by Bellasarius Productions and Universal Studios. No infringement on their respective copyrights is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan fiction story is written solely for the entertainment of the readers and is not for profit. All fiction, plots, and original characters are the sole creations of the author.

* * *

**The Meeting**

Clouds dulled the sunlight and a pasty gray sky just hung in the atmosphere, unwilling to commit to sunshine or rain. The California air warmed to a summer heat and he sipped his scotch and soda while he waited. Seated at the outdoor table, the drink in his hand was cool. Ice bobbed in the clean glass. His clothes were brilliantly clean. His body free from shackles and ropes contorting him into inhuman positions. His hell in Vietnam was over and done with. Lieutenant Commander Albert Calavicci was home in the States and waiting to say good-bye to the only reason he got out of hell alive.

Not that he could blame her - it had been years since she heard any news at all. By then, her heart couldn't tear her apart any longer without bleeding her to death. The possibility that she'd go on with her life was his single worst nightmare, but this nightmare was no longer one of those trancelike dreams that haunted him until long after he awoke. She wasn't his any longer and that reality filled him with more terror than waking up in a VC hootch and not knowing whether that would be the day he would die.

They told him with too much fake sorrow. Through the blah, blah, blah he heard just a few things. Declared dead. Second husband. A real marriage. Two year old child. Baby.

It made sense to the intellectual part of his brain, but his heart was still in denial, forever to stay in denial. He caught the waitress's eye and indicated he needed more scotch. No way could he see her and not be numbed by something other than the realization that he was totally alone in the world. The second drink arrived and it was over before he had the chance to set it on the table. Checking the time, he saw that she was late. It wasn't like her to be late.

By the time he saw her rounding the corner, a third scotch was ordered. She looked different. Her hair was shorter now and it looked lighter, as if she'd colored it. He didn't like it, but it didn't matter whether he did or not. When she saw him, her steps halted and her eyes tightly closed, her head bowed. She didn't move until the man next to her gently pushed at her elbow and whispered something to her.

The melancholy in her soul reflected in the sad nod she gave her escort, her new husband, but by then, not so new. She held one hand of a rambunctious toddler who laughed continuously at the toy in his other hand. The couple walked up to the haggard, uniformed Navy officer. Al stood up as they came within 15 feet.

The escort spoke first, holding his hand out to greet the returning war hero. "Hello, Lieutenant Calavicci. I'm glad you made it home."

The good sport in Al told him to shake the man's hand, but it wasn't going to happen. "That's Lieutenant Commander Calavicci."

"Yes, Lieutenant Commander. I forgot they promoted you." The man's palm sat mid air and only after a few moments of silence, he withdrew it. "I'm very glad you made it home alive. You have to believe that."

No anger, no animosity, just reality as he said, "I don't believe anything any more."

The man was nervous about this meeting, but the plans were made and he would not renege on the promise he'd made his wife no matter how much he felt threatened by the return of this ghost. "Well. I'm Dirk Simon. You know my wife Beth and this is our son Bjorn."

Al silently mouthed the odd name as he crouched down low, genuinely smiled and looked at the little boy who had eyes like his mother. "Hi there. How old are you?" Beth still stared at the ground.

The toddler looked up and smiled at the nice man in the white suit with all the pretty colored ribbons on it. "Two," and he grabbed for the array that sported all the new commendations the Lieutenant Commander earned while incarcerated by VC guerillas.

The boy's father gently patted away his son's hand. "Bjorn, don't touch."

"He can touch them. They're only ribbons." Turning back to the boy, he pointed at a brightly colored one. "This is my favorite. Cool colors, huh?"

Bjorn started to grab again, but daddy made the decisions and big tears welled up in the baby's eyes as Dirk patted his hand more sternly. "I said no touch."

Standing up to the man, Al shook his head and told him, "He's a baby. Cut him some slack. I don't mind him playing with the citations I earned in Vietnam." Never one to let a good opening pass him by, Al asked, "Don't you let him play with yours? Oh, that's right. You got a student deferment. How did that work out for you?" It was a cheap shot and at some point in the future he'd regret it, but it felt so right to get in a good jab.

Twelve years earlier, when Al committed his life to serving his country, Dirk attended graduate school, the choice of privileged young men wanting to avoid the draft. The attorney started to say something, thought better of it and turned to his wife. "Beth, we'll be back in 15 minutes. We have to get to Mom's by six, so be ready." There was no need to be pleasant to the Lieutenant Commander nor any want, so he kissed Beth on the cheek and left the restaurant, Bjorn in tow.

Al stood in front of Beth. She still said nothing and didn't dare to look in his eyes. "Beth, we only have 15 minutes. Whatever we got to say to each other, let's get it over and done with." He pulled a chair out from the table and gestured for her to sit which she did. Waving the waitress back, he asked his now pregnant ex-wife, "What would you like to drink?" The waitress stood at his side, but still nothing from the lovely woman. "She's going to have a baby soon. No alcohol for her. She'll have a lemonade with a lot of ice." The waitress left. "You still like your lemonade with a lot of ice?" This time he decided to remain quiet until she broke the silence.

Over a minute passed before she forced herself to answer him. "You remembered that?" Still her eyes faced the floor.

"I remember everything. There wasn't much else to do except think about you and try to remember every day that we were together."

The effort was monumental, but her eyes slowly rose and eventually met his. The gaunt features surprised her. "My God, you're so thin."

"I've actually gained back about 12 pounds, but I have about another 30 to go."

She couldn't get past his emaciation. "I can't believe you made it home after all this time."

"Me either."

She tried again to divert her eyes from his face, but unluckily enough they landed on his hands folded on top of the table. Rings of still fiery scars encircled both wrists and two fingers on his left hand bent unnaturally. It took all the strength in her to say his name. "Al, I thought you were dead. I really did. You have to believe me."

"Pick that phrase up from your husband?" As the statement left his lips, he regretted it. "That wasn't fair."

She misunderstood his comment. Her breath shuddered when she told him. "I know it wasn't fair, but I still really thought you died there. I mean, it was such a long time with no news."

"No, Beth, I mean it wasn't fair of me to snap at you like that."

"Oh." The uncomfortable tension kept the conversation at arm's length. "That's okay."

He didn't know how much more he could take. She treated him like he was a stranger, not the man whom she vowed to love forever. Yeah, she was remarried, but there still had to be something in her heart for him. It's not like he deserted her or went off with another woman. He was in a God damn VC prison camp - about five of them actually, each one more terrifying the one before. Each time they moved him, it got harder and harder to hold onto the hope that someday he might make it home, but he tried to believe in a future where he would come home and find Beth waiting for him, eager to hold him, to make love to him again.

And she did wait for what seemed like forever. Day after day, it got harder to imagine he could be alive. Everyone knew that MIA was a military excuse for not retrieving the bodies of men who died in service to their country. Two years went by and the Navy had no more information about him than they did on the day Commander Pryor came to her door with the news that her husband was missing.

Work can only fill so much of the time. At some point, you have to go home and that's when her loneliness brought her close to suicide. If it hadn't been for Jake Rawlins and Dirk Simon, that weekend might possibly have been her last. Suddenly, she had two men interested in her. Quite honestly, at that time, Jake held more appeal, but he disappeared as quickly as he came. Dirk, however, kept coming back and finally convinced her to let go of the past, bury her poor first husband, and continue her life. They even had a funeral. Her new boyfriend and his mother comforted the grieving widow. The stone over the empty grave declared Al's birth and the date of his supposed death. Once a year, on their anniversary, Beth returned to the grave and placed a calla lily on the grass. Dirk would stand quietly behind her, supporting her need to remember the brave man, her lover, her husband, who gave his life for his country.

They sat staring into the memories of their lost past until a lemonade showed up. Beth whispered a thank you to the waitress and lifted the glass. It returned to the table top and she took a deep breath. Her hand stretched forward toward his and touched his fingertips. "I didn't know, Al. No one thought you were still alive."

He knew what fear felt like, but fear should be reserved for the times like when the VC play Russian roulette with you and your buddy and you hear the bullet fire off into his skull and his brain splatters on your sunburned and blistered skin. Her touch was the thing he coveted even more than clean water to drink, but now it just made him afraid. Drawing on the scotch in his system, he found the nerve to hold her hand. "I guess people would be telling you that, but do you have any idea what that makes me feel like? I mean, it was a crapshoot every day and all I had was believing that you were waiting for me to get home."

Her hand pulled back from his touch. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too." The scotch found his lips again and it was gone in three gulps. "I forgot how much I like good scotch."

The recollection of his scotch preference made her finally smile a little. "Glenmorangie, two fingers, straight up. Dirk likes Glenmorangie too. I got him . . ." and she realized Al didn't need to know that she was now buying the expensive liquor for her second husband. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

"Actually, Beth, it does." He put his hand under her chin and tilted her head up. "You have to look at me if we're going to do this." Then her eyes locked into his and a scream of horror seized his body. Nobody heard it. "I just want to say good-bye and wish you a happy life."

A tear trailed from the corner of her eye. "I never meant to hurt you."

So what? So she hadn't meant it. So fucking what? The hurt happened whether she meant it or not, but he hated seeing her cry. She had a life with a husband, a son, another baby coming soon. Hurting her would do nothing but poison the memory of him. "I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I know." It was getting difficult. All he had wanted was a chance to see her one last time, but he finally admitted to himself that wasn't what he wanted at all. His dream saw her rejecting Dirk and running into his arms, being his again. It wasn't all that easy though. The Simons had children and children need both parents. He wasn't about to ruin a child's life.

Growing up in ruin himself taught him that much. Damn, the children complicated everything. There was no way in hell that he would let that little boy and his soon to be sibling grow up with parents in conflict with each other. His early life was filled with parents yelling in dueling foreign languages. Mama would scream and Papa would yell back with arms flailing like a pinwheel. Back and forth, they'd argue endlessly while he sat in the small bedroom he shared with his little sister. He'd tell her stories and sing silly songs to keep her from getting scared. That was another time, another desperate sense of loneliness to deal with. Beth was now and sitting just a few feet away from him, and close enough to touch.

She reached again for her lemonade. His hands had to move away if she wanted a sip. The plastic straw touched her lips. It wasn't that she thirsted, but it was something to do. "I missed you so much. There were times I used to pretend you were home. I'd pretend to slow dance with you even after Dirk and I started dating." Why did she have to add that last bit?

Choosing to ignore the comment about Dirk, Al said, "To **Georgia**. Yeah, I'd dream of that, too." He recalled that one tenuous time when he felt life drifting out of his body. "Once, after they really . . ." he still couldn't say out loud the things done to him, "Well, it was really bad and I thought I was going to die. I remember hearing **Georgia** in my head and it played over and over and over. I don't know how many days later it was, but my buddy Dan he told me that I sang that song for hours until the entire camp ended up singing with me." He laughed. "Dan said the V hated everybody singing like that and they started to . . ." No, the stories had to remain buried. "It wasn't one of my better days, but **Georgia** got me through it."

"Dirk and I love Ray Charles." She stopped. Nothing she was saying came out right. With each comment she was telling him that her life went on even if his did stall out for six years of torture. It was time to talk the reality they both had to live from that second on. "Al, I loved you. That won't ever change. Please remember that I loved you so much."

Looking at her was getting a little easier, kind of like looking at a gaping cut on the sole of your foot. The first time you look, it's too creepy, but then you get used to it and the pain starts to fascinate. "You keep putting that in the past tense. I guess you don't love me anymore." She said nothing. "It's okay, I guess. At least, I understand, I think." He hated seeing her in such pain. "Look, Beth, you're farther along in this breakup than I am. You've had a few years to get over . . ." He wasn't sure if he had the right words, but it was what it was. "A few years to get over our marriage. I just need time to catch up."

Tears began to flow from Beth's eyes and her pretty face twisted into that ugly cry that happened only when the pain was too deep. He wanted his arms to console her, but he kept to his side of the table, grateful for the barrier it presented.

She pulled a tissue from her purse. "I never meant to hurt you. You have to believe that."

Sighing with annoyance, he asked, "Again?" He moved restlessly in his chair. "Listen, I never meant to hurt you either and you have to believe that. I guess that makes us even because regardless of what we meant, we sure as hell hurt each other."

Biting down on her lip gave her some physical pain to deal with. It had to be easier than the emotions running through her. "I guess we did." Her crying turned into sobbing and her body shook with the release of her anguish. "How could this happen to two people so meant to be with each other?"

Al didn't think his heart could explode again, but she managed to find one bit that was still alsmot intact. "You mean that?"

Beth searched her wounded spirit. "I did - once. That time is over, though. I'm married to Dirk and it's a good marriage, Al. I love him."

He had to know. A spark of maybe gave him a second of hope. "Like you loved me?"

There was love and there was true love. Love was good and she could love any number of good men who showed up at her door. She could have learned to love Jake Rawlins. True love was different and Al was her one and only true love. She needed to be honest. "No, Al. The kind of love we had was once in a lifetime, if a person is lucky. I know that, but I do love Dirk and I love our son." Her hand settled on her growing tummy. "And this new baby. It's a good life that I have. I can't turn away from it."

When you're angry and can't show it, act like it doesn't matter. "Seems like you turned away from it pretty easily a few years back." It sounded petty and it was. Maybe it wasn't. He didn't know and part of him suddenly didn't care anymore. It was over. He loved her, but the need to see her was gone. She was staring down again, blushing from his rebuke . "Look, Beth, I'm sorry. That wasn't nice to say. I didn't mean it."

The sobs hadn't stopped. "Yes, you did."

Getting up from his chair, he crouched at her side, took the tissue from her hand and gently wiped at the tears streaming from her eyes. "No, I didn't. You know me. I say things first and worry about it later."

He was so close, touching her when she was so vulnerable. He always was her protector in ways Dirk never was nor could be. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. You deserve better. Please forgive me."

The pounding in his chest, everyone had to be able to hear it. It flooded his head with its rhythm. "Baby, it's okay. It's all okay." But it wasn't. These tears mourned a love that was lost, forever. He didn't quite know why he said it, but he did. "Beth, I love you."

Breaking the embrace, she tenderly pushed him away. "No, you don't. You love Beth Calavicci. I'm Beth Simon now. You don't love her."

There was that. This Beth had short light brown hair. His Beth's hair flowed dark brown and silky. This Beth had a son and was pregnant. His Beth had no kids. This Beth had a lifetime of happy memories with her family to look forward to. His Beth had only the sadness of a husband lost to the evil of war. He returned to his chair, sat down with his hands in his lap. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry."

And so they sat - two people who knew to the depths of their being that it was destiny for them to be together, but who also knew life wasn't going to let that happen. The silence gave each a chance to build the barricades they would need for the rest of their lives.

Al glanced at his watch. Only five minutes passed and he had ten more to fill. The tension needed to break and the best tension breaker Al knew was talk about the kids. "So, your little boy is really cute."

Mama's pride shone through the tears. "He's a handful," and she smiled for the first time since she sat down. She had a calling to be a mother to beautiful babies and she found someone who could let her fulfill that calling.

Al smiled too. She loved her life. He could see it on her face. As much as he wanted to bring her home with him, it wasn't going to be. "Would you answer one question for me?"

A catch of fear knotted her stomach. "I can try."

He winked and smiled, "Why would you give a cute kid like that a name like Bjorn?"

There it was - the laugh he adored. "It was Dirk's grandfather's name."

"I knew there had to be a reason, but you do know his initials are B.S."

The smile was even bigger and she looked more beautiful. "I tried to tell that to Dirk, but he wouldn't listen to me."

Then the silence told him there was nothing more to say. Al stood up. "Listen, Beth, if you don't mind, I'm going to take off."

She looked into his eyes and whispered, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Forgiving me."

Both of them took a deep breath and it was done. The meeting was over.

Al put a twenty on the table and started to walk away. He didn't turn around when she said, "His middle name is Albert."

THE END


End file.
